Why you must solicit reviews from your customers

“I was at my wits’ end, now I have hope!’

When I read this review of us on Trustpilot, it reminded me that what we ultimately do as a company is help people. Yes, we reduce the spread of disease and protect property, but we must always remember this is about our customers. Whether it’s a homeowner with a cockroach problem or a facilities manager trying to deal with a pigeon problem, at the end of the day we are only doing our job properly if the customer is happy.

But how do we really know our customers are happy? It’s simple - we ask them. 

Realistically, they are already giving feedback to friends, family, online review sites and through social media. Unfortunately, people are more inclined to make the effort to leave a review if they are unhappy. However, by asking for reviews we have the opportunity to gain a more balanced assessment of our company.  

If you adopt a ‘don’t ask and you won’t hear anything negative’ approach, then you are missing the point. The people who read these reviews are potential customers, but how do you use them to benefit your business? 

What are the benefits of soliciting reviews?

• Alignment – be sure your services align with the needs of the customer
• Satisfaction – find out how happy your customers are and use this feedback to continuously improve your service and build a loyal customer base
• Team development – share feedback with employees to reinforce best practices and strengthen both short and long-term improvements
• Service development – asking the right questions lets you understand not only what your customers want now, but also what they will want in the future
• Find new customers – 98% of potential customers now read online reviews for local businesses before making a purchasing decision, and real reviews from real people are far more effective than influencer content 

You can’t please everyone

I said before, it’s human nature to complain but not always to praise and, unfortunately, however hard you try, you can’t always leave every job with the client 100% happy but if they review us at least we know and we have the opportunity to initiate a conversation and rectify things.

Why would we want a conversation?

Firstly, it gives us the chance to quickly address any problems and potentially change the course of the relationship. This can even benefit us as one study found that 83% of customers felt greater loyalty to a brand that responded to and resolved a complaint. If you adopt the ‘head-in-sand’ approach, you will never have the chance to build that customer’s loyalty to your brand. 

Secondly, even if they don’t remain a customer, your prompt action will have had two very positive effects:

1. They will feel listened to, and this could stop them from spreading negative opinions about you
2. A quick response shows other potential customers you care and take these matters seriously. Remember: 98% of potential customers read online reviews

But there is more to online feedback, and this relates to that mercurial thing SEO – search engine optimisation. The basic equation is:

Online feedback = better SEO = higher Google rating

Why will reviews boost your Google rating?

1. Keywords – it may seem unromantic, but your customers are content creators. Every time they leave a review, this is fresh content for Google to consider and content with keywords helps Google build a clearer picture of your business. This will give you a better position in the SERPs (search engine results pages)
2. Trust – Google trust reviews and rates companies accordingly. If you have lots of quality reviews, your company will rank higher
3. Lower bounce rate – high bounce rates kill SEO, but it’s been shown customers are more likely to stay on a site and buy if reviews are visible

You can’t stop people reviewing your business and so it makes sense to see and use these reviews positively. 

I’m proud to say the main online review sites give us a 95% 5-star rating on Trustpilot, 4.8/5 on Facebook and 4.7/5 on Google. We are very proud of these statistics, but we only achieve these because we remember the most important thing – the customer. 

Got a pest problem? Call us on 0800 056 5477

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay